Strategic Management and Business Planning - Case Study Example

MBA Strategic Management Capstone Exam Fall 2009 College of Management Explain the basic concept of strategic business planning and how it would help improve performance at Lawrence since they had never engaged in any type of planning beyond basic financial forecasting. 2. She specifically asks you what her role would be in the planning process, what the corporate headquarters’ responsibilities would be and how the corporation would add value to the business units. The three Presidents of the business units and the functional executives also wanted to know what their specific roles and responsibilities would be in this new planning process, and how their performance would be evaluated and rewarded. 3. The Vice President of Information Technology also wanted to know what types of external and internal information would be required to develop the business plans, and how they would obtain this information. He wanted to know what types of analytical tools, methodologies and skills they would need to generate and analyze this information. 4. One of the Presidents of the business units asks you to explain what a business plan consist of and how they will know if they have developed a good plan. 5. Finally, the CEO stated emphatically that she did not have the time to spare or the resources to devote to writing business plans that would only “gather dust on the shelves.” She asks you how you would ensure that the plans were implemented effectively. The basic concept of a strategic business plan is to determine the major goals within our organization. In doing this, it is important that we are careful to observe company policies and develop the strategies to gain the needed resources to produce successful plans and objectives in achieving new company goals. The use of a strategic business plan will help the company by providing a foundation to organize Lawrence’s current procedures and policies. The new strategies we implement should then show us how to develop ideas in planning how to effectively use those resources that we already have. In turn we should be able to use the current company policies as references to move us in the direction in which we need to be going. The unique challenge in this issue seems to come with a focus on a need to improve performance. While strategic planning, we will determine exactly which of the six products is producing the best numbers and where in nation the bulk of our profits are streaming from. In these specific areas we will continue to thrive by not only exceeding our customer’s needs but exceeding their expectations as well. Proper planning will also help us to further understand why the company has been failing to meet its market share goals. Certain cost can be reduced and we can use research resources to determine how our competitors are able to keep some of their prices lower, thus opening a broad range of options for Lawrence to take action in its overall process of improvement. Setting some long range goals to establish a future outlook will help us to adjust our new plan of action to meet as many company objectives as possible. We can use these goals to build long term share holder values in order to maximize shareholder returns. Building a new strategic plan will ultimately set in action our ability to accomplish business goals. Your specific role as the CEO of the company will come while making the key decisions that will ultimately decide what will and will not be happening. We will need you to look over and approve any report drafts or objective plans that will be released throughout the company as finite developments. As conditions in this business begin to evolve, we must be flexible enough to change plans whenever it is deemed necessary. The company will need you to be responsive to its changes by being strong enough to stand out from the rest of us as well as being flexible enough to adapt to any new environments that might require your attention. Decision making is the heart of all management functions so we will depend on your rational judgments as a model for the company to make logical, intelligent, and well-founded decisions. Once your team of mangers has planned a course of action and discussed things with you, your role then will be to help them allocate resources and establish procedures for accomplishing organizational objectives. Your conceptual skills will be needed to picture the organization as a whole as each relationship to every function in this business will be dependent upon your ability to coordinate by delegating specific duties while analyzing problems. Control of decision making and planning development groups will provide the company with your technical and human relation skills to be useful as communicators and morale builders during this whole ordeal of planning. Each president should help to communicate the company objectives and establish company values that rally others to follow. Being openly sensitive to concerns and embracing all opinions will help to promote company ethics. They too will be responsible for introducing the business plans among your management teams. They should also be prepared to delegate duties as well as issue rewards for outstanding performances throughout the company. Working as a top level management team, they will work to develop a contingency plan to complement the current strategic plan. The regular annual performance bonuses will be given. In the IT department, we will need the vice president to help by gathering information to help us set clear performance standards along with monitoring and recording actual performance results. We will need him to compare the results against plans and standards then communicate them back to his direct contact. The data will involve our external customers and our internal customers. The external customers will include dealers who buy our products to sell to others and the regular customers who buy our products for their own personal needs. Next he will use the data from the internal customers who of course are the individuals within the firm that use goods or services from our business outside of work. We will use this data to determine what group of people we cater to and in what areas our company can stand to use the most improvement. Containing this data information will contribute to our firm’s organizational effectiveness. This will include helping us to maintain our environmental responsibility in the area surrounding the business and perhaps to even reduce cost concerning the new onerous environmental regulations. Even though we thrive on our ability to produce money at all cost, it is still important for us as a company to please employees, customers, and our stakeholders. The vice president of the IT department’s role of organizing the gathering of this important information will prove to be most valuable. Good networking and proper system developments will infuse the collected data and should provide accurate reports featuring the charts of each individual group surveyed in real time. Every business plan consists of a detailed written statement which describes the nature of the business. At this company, it will be important for us to make sure we explain how we will control and effectively budget the companies finances. Listing all possible information pertaining to record keeping in accounting will prove usefully to catch to attention of top level management and company stake holders. We already know the specific advantages that we hold over our competition so it will be good idea to document each factual statement in order to for the company to identify itself as a cut above the rest. We will then add the information which will mention the resources and qualifications of our owners. In all this, we must calculate and express our request for specific things that we need or would like to happen here at Lawrence. It may take us while to gather and compile all the information but in due time we should be able to produce a perfect plan ready for presentation. An effective business plan will include ten complete sections. Number one, a cover letter will summarize the most pivotal highlights of this company. Number two, the executive summary will show a short description of what we do here along with any major goals that we may have. Number three, the company background will summarize our current financial condition including our account balance and ledger stats. Number four, we will describe our management team qualifications in reference to our skills as a whole. Number five, our financial plan will provide a break down of numbers and contingencies. Number six, we should indicate in this section the amount of capital needed for all operations. Number seven, the marketing plan will discuss our plans as a company to sell our product and analyze every inch Lawrence’s marketing program. Number eight, Here is where we will give a location analysis. The location of a business is one of the most important factors. Number nine, our manufacturing plan will touch base on the core of our production from quality to product cost. Number ten, the final layout in a business plan is the appendix. In this section we will include all marketing research information pertaining to our products or services and will highly acclaim our industry in being a prize worth claiming. This is the area in which all our hard work is put to the test. The first steps in getting the new plans and objectives implemented will involve the formation of an operational plan that will help to distribute our goals along with the objectives to meet them. This plan will become an important tool for our daily and weekly operations. This type of plan will allow for our management teams to have in place a system that will efficiently guide them through the each new detail of the current processes that have modified. In addition, new objectives will be supplemented into our production plan on monthly bases until each management team on every level has been fully trained and understands completely the company outlines and objectives. Job rotation will become a key factor in making sure that each manager will learn the different functions of our new processes. This will better prepare them to cover for each other during sickness and paid time off. Job rotation within the top level management will allow for every area of the industry to feel the full effect of our new business plans throughout every level of management in the company. Thus after extensive training and good communication, we will begin to evolve the new system down to the employees. Using management by objectives will give us the best chance of making sure that our new plans are properly implemented. Setting tactical goals in each department will allow for our new operational plans to unfold. In doing this, the beginning strategic plans are now evolving into working processes. Using the training and written guidelines, our mid level managers will more than likely begin to set individual goals for their departments to accomplish. In every case good communication is always needed to effectively get anything done within a working environment. So it is important that progress reports are given from mid level management and feed back positive or negative is communicated back to our upper level management teams. The results will then be evaluated. If we are doing well then our annual bonuses will be increased. If for some odd reason things seem to be going bad, we will need to resort to the contingency plans that we have in put place for crisis and sudden changes. Planning is essential to keep us flexible. Having alternative courses of action will always allow us to seize all opportunities to improve whether they planned or unplanned. Read More